• Sweets on the Green

    A Decade of Decadent Desserts By Andra Moss How is your naughty versus nice rating? Those needing to influence Santa with an especially impressive treat should grab their stockings and head to the Norfolk Historical Society (NHS) for the 10th Annual Cake Auction on Saturday, Dec. 7.     Now a Norfolk holiday tradition, the event was […]

  • Artist Tom Burr Brings His Torrington Project to an End

    Performances celebrate studio closing By Stephen Melville Norfolk resident and artist Tom Burr organized a day of performances and exhibition at his studio in Torrington on Oct. 26, marking an end to what he has called “The Torrington Project.” For the past three and a half years, Burr has rented a vast—15,000 square foot—former industrial […]

  • New Meanings for a Monument

    Light Shines on the Memorial Green By Joe Kelly On Monday, Nov. 11, Veterans Day, a crowd of about 100 gathered for the rededication of Norfolk’s World War 1 memorial, artfully restored under the auspices of the Norfolk Community Association. It was sunny. Temperatures in the low ‘60’s. Another day of no rain. Everyone talked […]

  • Norfolk Then…

    This 1920s postcard shows Memorial Green just after the War Memorial, designed by Alfredo Taylor, was built. It was Taylor’s wife Minna who first proposed that a memorial “heroes grove” be planted on the small lot of land known as the Triangle opposite the Catholic Church. The lot had been left empty with the demolition […]

  • Restored war memorial to be celebrated on veterans day

    plaque now honors all who served By Patricia Platt A World War I monument, designed by Alfredo Taylor and erected on Norfolk’s Memorial Green in 1921, bears the inscription, “for those who gave and those who offered their lives for liberty, the people of Norfolk have built this monument and crowned it with the Liberty […]

  • NLT Tail Ablaze with Runners

    More than 120 runners enjoyed perfect fall weather as they wound their way through picturesque Barbour Woods in the 11th Annual Norfolk Land Trust Trail Race. Some chose to add a challenging loop over Haystack Mountain, while the half-marathoners just kept moving on up—topping out at over 2,000 feet of elevation gain. *photo by June […]

  • Can you spot the Real Curler?

    There was movie magic ice to be made, and the pros of the Norfolk Curling Club were the first to get the call. In October, NCC’s Jon Barbagallo, Lou Barbagallo, Rachel Barbagallo, Mark Walsh, Harvey Chalmers and Phill West were hired by a production company to make curling ice at a Rhode Island hockey rink […]

  • Norfolk Then…

    This 1917 photograph is a timely reminder of the long struggle fought by many dedicated women for basic civil liberties, including the right to own property, hold public office, sit on juries, participate in public assemblies and vote. The group of 25 suffragists—20 women and five men—gathered on the porch following their meeting with Congressman […]

  • The chicken who wanted to be a star and other tales from a norfolk movie set

    By Andra Moss Secrets and small towns don’t often pair well, and Norfolk is a small town. Yet, for eight weeks this summer, a crew of nearly 100 people quietly transformed Tim and Paula Webster’s 1908 Norfolk farmhouse into a film set for a feature-length production, all the while staying under the local radar.  It […]

  • great blue heron rookeries

    working together to provide sustainable breeding habitats By Jude Mead Great Blue Herons are a familiar sight in Norfolk and are one of the largest of all North American herons, standing up to four feet tall with a wingspan of close to six feet. They are most noticeable in flight as they soar across the […]

  • Norfolk Then…

    Tennis at Town Hall? The building we know as Town Hall was originally the Eldridge Gymnasium, built in 1892. Located within easy walking distance of hotels and boarding houses in Norfolk at the turn of the last century, the Gymnasium was a popular gathering place for both residents and visitors. People played croquet on the lawn […]

  • Looking Back Over the Years

    The End of an Era for Norfolk Now By Colleen Gundlach After 10 years and over 30 issues, Ruth Melville has put on her Norfolk Now editor’s hat for the last time. In June, the paper marked the end of an era with the publication of Ruth’s final issue as one of the executive editors […]

Articles

EDC Works Behind the Scenes to Restart Corner Store

Operator backs out at the eleventh hour   By Wiley Wood It seemed like a natural. The Corner Store in Norfolk had stood empty for years. Cornwall, a few towns over, had a thriving country store with a genial and energetic owner, but after operating for two years at the intersection of Route 7 and […]

Norfolk Festival Director Will Step Down After 2016 Season

Melvin Chen named new director   By Wiley Wood Paul Hawkshaw, the Yale School of Music professor who has served as director of the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival and the Yale Summer School of Music for more than a decade, has confirmed that he will step down after the festival’s 2016 season. Familiar to concertgoers […]

Norfolk’s Year-End Weather and a 2015 Summary

  Unusual Weather to Finish the Year   By Russell Russ The closing months of 2015 brought warm weather and below-average amounts of rain and snow. While unusual for Norfolk, but it seemed a fitting end to a strange weather year. Numerous months throughout the year ranked high in several categories. Warm temperatures, rainfall deficits […]

Julie Scharnberg Is Grants and Program Director of the Community Foundation

Assisting Nonprofits and People in Need   By Colleen Gundlach The Community Foundation of Northwest Connecticut (CFNC) was founded in 1969 by a small group of citizens in Torrington with $15,000 and plans to promote public giving. Today it has assets in excess of $87 million and endows 101 scholarships and more than 350 grants […]

Republicans and Democrats Caucus to Select Town Committees

By Ruth Melville   In an election year, most Americans are familiar with state and presidential caucuses, which are heavily publicized, much anticipated and often divisive national events. But on January 9 a similar democratic process—if on a much smaller scale—took place in Norfolk’s Town Hall. On that night the town’s Republicans and Democrats met […]

A New Foundation Aims at Downtown Hub

  By Janet G. Mead “Our dream is to make Norfolk the vibrant place we all would like it to be,” said Samuel (Pete) Anderson, president of the newly established Norfolk Foundation. “We want to make Norfolk a center for art and natural recreation.” To work toward this goal, Anderson and three other founding board […]

Historical Society Weekend Celebrates Today’s Norfolk Collectors

  In conjunction with their exhibition “A Farmer, a Sportsman and a Diplomat: The Romance of Collecting in Norfolk,” the Norfolk Historical Society is sponsoring a weekend in February devoted to today’s collections. On Friday, February12, a cocktail party at the Historical Museum will feature a group of Norfolk collectors who will share their collecting […]

Torrington’s Five Points Gallery: Art Mecca and Tool for City Revitalization

Out and About   By Ruth Melville Five Points Gallery, located in a historic building at the corner of Water and Main Streets in Torrington, has been in existence for less than three years, but it has already played a significant role in the revitalization of the city’s downtown. With its high ceilings and big […]

Aija Ends Its Run on Station Place

Pop-up planned for spring   By Ruth Melville For four and a half years, Bella Erder’s shop Aija, selling jewelry, accessories, tableware and other gifts, has been a lively and colorful part of Station Place. But last December Erder reluctantly decided it was time to close her doors. Erder and her family first bought a […]

Local Author Sees the Funny Side of Norfolk Life

Tony Thomson’s Second Career   By Lindsey Pizzica Rotolo A glance at Tony Thomson on paper (he was educated at Deerfield and Yale, served in the army during Vietnam, obtained graduate degrees from Oxford and Stanford and had a 30-year career in various investment management firms in London) doesn’t tell the whole story. While Thomson […]

Plantin’ Seeds in North Canaan Celebrates Farming

  By Ruth Melville Plantin’ Seeds Farm Kitchen, a new café and gathering place in North Canaan, is not your traditional restaurant. For one thing, it doesn’t charge money for its meals. Instead, it is a community resource, a mission and a project still taking shape. Plantin’ Seeds is the brainchild of Dale McDonald, a […]

Gearheads Working on New Robot

Northwestern robotics team receives grants from The Community Foundation of Northwest Connecticut   By Julie Scharnberg FIRST Robotics Team NRG4055 – better known as The Gearheads – from Northwestern Regional High School will build their robot this year with a new set of tools, thanks to a grant from the Ruth and Robert Cron Endowment […]